"One must abstain from sexual sin _and_ not go to dissenting
places of worship; one must not steal _and_ must be sure to abstain
from meat on Fridays." A man's own sense of reality should enable him
to guard against this sort of thing, and if fixed forms of self-
examination are used, to use them with discretion.
The forms most commonly suggested in manuals of devotion are based
upon the Ten Commandments. This is in accordance with the teaching of
the compilers of the English Prayer-book, who, after bidding intending
communicants to "search and examine" their "own consciences (and that
not lightly, and after the manner of dissemblers with GOD)," proceed
to lay down that "the way and means thereto is: First, to examine your
lives and conversations by the rule of God's commandments: and
whereinsoever ye shall perceive yourselves to have offended, either by
will, word or deed, there to bewail your own sinfulness, and to
confess yourselves to Almighty GOD, with full purpose of amendment of
life."
The Commandments are, however, as they stand, both negative in form
and Judaistic in character, and if used in this way as a "rule" of
Christian conduct must be spiritualized and reinterpreted in the light
of the Gospel.
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